It’s Monday…and I’m excited!

It’s Monday…and I’m excited!  Though I’m looking forward to a new week, I want to first recap 5 things that I’m really excited about right now…

#1 – Child of God: Though I’ve had those moments in which I question my faith; the depth of my faith, the level of my faith and at times, the existence of my faith, I am so excited to be a child of God, made in His image for His pleasure.  It’s a continual process of identifying and re-declaring who I am in Him and what that looks like.

#2 – Family: I feel so blessed and excited to be able to be a husband, a father, a brother and a son.  Each day I’m reminded of the blessings of being a part of a family as I embrace the responsibilities and privileges God has given me.

#3 – Pastor: I love my church and I’m excited to be able to do life and ministry with such an incredible body of believers who are committed to fulfilling His will in and through us.  Illumination Church exists to love God, love people and light the world, and I can hardly believe that I get to be a part of God’s work with them.

#4 – Friend: This week I have been reminded multiple times of how blessed and excited I am to be a friend.  I’ve had the chance to hunt with a friend, ride motorcycles with friends, eat with friends, pray with and for friends, shop for a friend and encourage many friends.

#5 – Community Center/Office: I’m growing increasingly excited about the development of our church’s community center and office space.  With a projected completion date set for mid-November, I expect that soon our space will be used to impact our community in a variety of ways.  I’m also pretty stoked to have an office that I can work from as I may be somewhat administratively inept and having a designated space to work from will likely help a bit with that.

As I sit here entering this post and thinking through the past week, I’m finding myself consumed and excited with thoughts of the things to come this week…

#1 – Serve Sunday: This coming Sunday our church is taking to the streets to serve several families in need throughout our community.  I’m excited to see our faith in action as a body of believers and to watch God do what only He can do in these families lives.

#2 – Trunk-Or-Treat: I’m really excited for our Trunk-Or-Treat event after Serve Sunday.  We’re gathering together to celebrate on Sunday afternoon with families who will decorate their vehicles, candy, games and so much more.  Though I’m not sure of my costume just yet, I’m super-stoked to be a part of such an amazing church who places a high-value on investing in our children.

#3 – Creative Design: Tuesday night I have the privilege of sitting with a group of awesomely creative thinkers who will help dream up and put together some amazing things for our church and our community.  I couldn’t be more excited for the group of men and women God continues to surround me with here in our church.

#4 – Lead Team: Not much time goes by in which I’m not, in some way, reminded of how blessed I am with the leaders God is raising up within our community and our church.  I’m so excited and confident that I have the awesome responsibility of doing life and ministry with some of the greatest leaders in the world!

#5 – Doing Life: This week we’ve got a lot going on – from getting my 5-year old’s cast on to our Celebration Service to multiple meetings and more, I am excited to have the opportunity to do life.  This may sound silly, but I know people and witness people every day who simply “go through the motions” and live less than a life, just trying to make it through.  I have been guilty of that myself.  That said, I’m continually looking for ways to embrace life this side of heaven…

Until all hear,

Andrew

t r a n s i t i o n

The 1995 Rose Bowl was a college football bowl game played on Monday January 2, 1995 because New Year’s Day was on a Sunday. It was the 81st Rose Bowl Game. The Penn State Nittany Lions defeated the Oregon Ducks 38–20.  This game bares a tremendous amount of significance in my life and not because of who was playing or the outcome of the game, though both were important to me.  Instead, this day will forever live in eminence in my life as the day marking major transition in my life.  It is the day that set my adoption as a 16-year old kid into motion; a day that I will forever be grateful for and a day that has changed the trajectory of my life and the lives of those around me forever.

High School graduation, June of 1997 from Oregon City High School is another day that carries large significance for me.  It symbolizes the accomplishment of so much that so many never thought was possible.  It is the month that I graduated with my senior class, a feat that I never thought I would overcome and a day that brought about major transition in the lives of many.

November 2000 is the month that I became a Father for the first time.  Though it wasn’t in the traditional sense, I would become a father to a beautiful 5-year old little girl over night; a result of a lifestyle and decision that preceded my adoption.  As you can well imagine there was a lot of transition in store for a single 22-year old guy who just found out about his daughter whom he never knew he had.

Another large transition came for me on November 16th, 2002, the day of my Wedding to my beautiful bride, Stacy.  Stacy and I were married in the little town of Camas, Washington with nearly 300 of our closest friends and family in attendance.  Our ceremony is the longest, to date, that I have ever witnessed, been a part of or experienced – a great day!

September 8th, 2003, my son, Kaedon Robert is born…

November, 2003 we move to Glendale, Arizona to serve some of the best years of ministry as youth pastor’s with an incredible church group of people…

November, 2005 we move to New Bern, NC where Stacy and I had accepted a position as Next Generation Pastor to a wonderful church body…

January, 2006 my daughter, Tailyn Kay is born…

December, 2007 my wife and I give birth to our stillborn son…

March 2008, Stacy and I pack up the kids and head to Oregon City, OR to begin a new life – no jobs, no money and living on faith…

July 1, 2008 I began work as the Young Adult/Growth Group Pastor with a church in my hometown of Oregon City, a position that has proven to be most rewarding…

August 19, 2008 I had a stroke; the kind of stroke that can leave individuals paralyzed or even dead.  God is good and I have absolutely zero residual effects from the stroke – a medical mystery?  I think not.  God is good and brought me through by His healing power…

March 28th, 2009 my daughter, Ryen Elizabeth is born…

t r a n s i t i o n . . .

Hmmm.  I find myself snickering out loud even now as I type.

So many transitions.

And…

Here I find myself in the midst of another transition.

In just a few short weeks my family and I will be making many transitions.  We will be transitioning States, from our home in Oregon to the land of 10,000 lakes, Minnesota (really, there are more than 14,000 lakes in total), I will be transitioning from my position as an Associate Pastor to the Lead Pastor of a young and changing church in the midst of their own transition.  What’s more is that our kids will be transitioning from their schools here in Oregon to new schools, new systems with new friends.  My wife, Stacy, will be transitioning from daycare full-time to a new role; one that she is excited about and lying in wait with great anticipation.  The above is by no means an exhaustive list of the transitions ahead of us.  They are simply some of the things that we will be experiencing very soon.

With transition comes many feelings and emotions: excitement, joy, sadness, loss, curiosity, anxiety, anticipation and more.

I guess this post is really a form of therapy for me.  I don’t necessarily have a “real” reason for writing.  My goal is not to inspire or evoke emotion toward life-change.  My purpose in writing is really more for me to process; after all, I am a verbal processor and this is a chance at that.

If you’re reading this post and you feel compelled, can I ask you to pray a prayer of blessing over me, Stacy and the kids?

If not, that’s okay too.

As we transition, here are some ways that you can pray for us:

1. Pray for the peace of God to penetrate and radiate within our lives
2. Pray for health and wholeness
3. Pray for the kids as they self-sacrifice; setting aside their own agendas for what we believe God is calling us to
4. Pray for our extended family whom all live close to our current home setting.  This transition is really hard on them as well
5. Pray for God’s will to be done in and through us
6. Pray for safe travels
7. Pray for family unity and that we will grow closer to one another

Thank you for taking the time to process and pray with me.

~Andrew

Identity

identity |īˈdentitē|
noun ( pl. -ties)
1 the fact of being who or what a person or thing is…
2 the characteristics determining this…

Identity.  What is it…really?

We all have an identity – a system of determining, in part, who we are.

But where do we find our identity?

A few weeks ago I was watching the show, Pawn Stars, on television.  The show is relatively new to me and has no story line.  Instead, it’s a “reality” television show which documents one of the largest and most famous pawn shops in Las Vegas.  The premise of the show is really to learn about how things are either sold, pawned or traded for.  They have some pretty crazy things that cross their counters.

During the course of the Pawn Stars episode that I was watching a man came into their shop with a vintage Rolex.  While the Rolex in and of itself was pretty cool, the back-story is what gave the expensive watch it’s identity and is where I was really first introduced to the “Ponzi” scheme.  According to the owner of the watch, he had purchased the Rolex at an estate auction and was interested in the watch because it belonged to a man named Charles Ponzi.

Ponzi was an immigrant from Lugo, Italy who made his way on to the scene in November of 1903 when he made his way to Boston from Italy.  Once in Boston Ponzi bounced from job to job before being arrested for check fraud.  This arrest would prove to be the beginning of a life in crime.  Ponzi would be released from prison 3-years later and would eventually father the most massive scheme of his time (now known as the Ponzi scheme).

Charles Ponzi began buying and selling IRC (International Reply Coupons) from country to country making a profit on the excess in the cost of stamps from one county to the next.  It wasn’t long before Ponzi had asked friends and peers to invest.  Within a short amount of time Ponzi had no longer dealt in IRC’s, but was making money off of people subsequent investments and was robbing Peter to pay Paul.  In all Ponzi schemed people out of better than $7 million dollars of their investment money, a figure that is unlike any other when you consider that this all took place in the 1920′s.

After many rumors and much speculation accompanied by a State investigation, Ponzi’s scheme came crashing down.  As a direct result, five banks went under and people whom had invested their entire life savings received less than 30 cents for every dollar they had invested, if they received anything at all.

Charles Ponzi would go on to serve several more years in prison before eventually being released and deported back to Italy where he continued in his scheming ways.  Ponzi died alone, penniless and severely handicapped at a mercy hospital in Brazil in 1949 at the age of 66.

What a legacy?!

To be remembered for centuries as the father of lies and reckless money fraud.  This man, Ponzi, had successfully conned thousands of men, women and children out of their life savings and he did it for his own personal gain.

Where did it get him?

Anyway.  Enough of the history lesson.  That was a pretty big rabbit trail, but it’s not often that I find myself sounding educated and so I thought I would capitalize on it by sharing what I had learned.  (written with a smirk of sarcasm)

The point in all of this is that I’m sure there are several things that made up Charles Ponzi – his family heritage, his childhood experiences, his wife, etc.  While all of these things, no doubt, were a part of who he was, his identity was found in how he lived his life…his legacy.

This question surrounding Ponzi’s identity has left me considering how each of us has an identity.  Each one of us is a bi-product of our environments and experiences; a culmination of personality traits, characteristics and life experiences.  Our identity is much more than what we simply see on the surface.  It goes deeper than that.  It goes below the surface.

All of this has begged the question for me, Who Am I?

I am in the process of doing an “internal audit” in which I am asking some pretty tough questions.  I have also enrolled the help of some very trusted and honest friends to help me in discovering and better understanding who I am.  What I’ve found has been good for me in many ways.  There have been so many wonderful things said of me.  That said, there have also been some very sobering and at times, painful, things that I have had to come to terms with; the things below the surface that can go un-noticed.

So here’s where I’m at…

I desire to find my identity in Christ.

Jesus tells his disciples and other onlookers a parable of a vine and branches in an effort to communicate the importance of living our lives in Christ.  Here’s what Jesus said:

 ¹ “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. ² He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes^[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. ³ You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. ⁴ Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.” (John 15:1-4)

While many people will spend their lives trying to create their identity, buy their identity or work their way into their identity, Jesus calls me, as a believer, to something very different.  My identity in Christ cannot be bought, but was purchased with a price.  My identity in Christ cannot be earned, but is a free gift of grace.  My identity in Christ cannot be sold, bartered for or pawned.  It is a lifestyle.  A lifestyle.

So I am left with the hope of a Father who loves me so much that He gave His Son for me, paid the price for me and calls me according to His good measure.  My identity is in my response.  I get to live every day of my life living in the presence of the Father while actively pursuing a relationship with Jesus Christ through His Holy Spirit whom He has given me.  It’s a process to say the least.  It is not something that I can go alone, and it can only be achieved through the help of the Spirit.

Here’s the bottom line…

Regardless of my past, my mistakes, my family history or origin, my employment status or how popular I was in high school, I am a child of God and my identity is found in Him.

In the book of Genesis we are introduced to the concept that God has created each one of us in His image.  Can you imagine?  You?  Created in God’s image.  Me?  Created in God’s image.  Male and female alike, we were created in the image of God.  That’s the identity that is available for everyone who would believe and call on the name of Christ.  That is the identity that we can walk in.

Anyway, this is just something that I have been processing lately.

Thanks for being a part of my process!

Sunday Night Mind Dump

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week has been crazy-busy in my life and ministry…

HIGHLIGHTS:
# Spent Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning in Bellevue, WA at a ministry conference (Northwest Ministry Conference)

# Heard one of the most “on point” messages I’ve heard in a long time compliments of God via Pastor Wayne Cordeiro

# Enjoyed a phenomenal conversation with Pastor Mike Howerton of Overlake Christian Church

# After 8 years of marriage, Stacy was finally able to get away and attend a ministry conference with me thanks to some amazing friends and lots of support

# Saturday afternoon was spent detailing my 2003 Honda Accord (spotless) and tending to the much needed yard work

# I spent Saturday night with my kids getting hair cuts, shopping for necessities at Fred Meyer and just being a dad

# Today I taught with Dr. Brent Burson on “Things That Jesus Said” this morning.  I love that man and had an absolute blast!

# Spent lunch today in a meeting with our staff and support team at church (Oregon City Evangelical)

# Enjoyed an incredible leadership team meeting with some great leaders from The Inn; our young adult ministry at OCEC, after our staff luncheon

# Tonight has been pretty low-key with the family.  I went through some old family photos and ate breakfast for dinner.  Gotta love them Frosted Mini-Wheats!

# Woke up this morning and Stacy totally surprised me with an unexpected, amazing gift.  A new ring from Joe Kassab (Tungsten).  Feeling so blessed!!

# Tucked the kids into bed and ready to head there soon myself…

 

THIS WEEK I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO:

# Working out at Anytime Fitness and running

# Finishing up our series from the book of Acts, Chapter 9 at The Inn on Thursday night

# Baseball practice at Clackamas Little League with my son, Kaedon

 

 

Worship is…

Worship is a part of my faith that has, is and will hopefully continue to develop in existence both in and through my life for the remainder of my life.  It is not something that I pretend to have figured out; whatever that means, but is a constant process of learning, defining and refining.  In my muses I hope to give an account for worship as I understand it as well as how it is implemented in my life and relationship with God and in the local church.

 

What is worship?

From a secular perspective the New Oxford World Dictionary defines worship in several forms, three of which include:

1. the feeling or expression of reverence and adoration for a deity : the worship of God | ancestor worship.
2. the acts or rites that make up a formal expression of reverence for a deity; a religious ceremony or ceremonies : the church was opened for public worship.
3. archaic honor given to someone in recognition of their merit.

While I feel that these definitions offered are adequate in describing the general idea of worship as either a noun or a verb, I do not believe that it encompasses worship as is intended or described for the believer – an individual in a committed relationship with God.  As such I want to offer a common passage of scripture that most in Christian circles are familiar with, this coming from the gospel of John, the fourth chapter:

²¹Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²²You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. ²⁴God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”

In a recent review of Tozer’s book, “Whatever Happened To Worship?” I have known for some time that God desires worshipers who make the decision to worship Him in Spirit and in truth.  My understanding of this passage of Scripture has been relatively shallow; to allow the Holy Spirit to lead when we worship and to be certain that what you are offering is genuine.

In John’s gospel he gives an account of Jesus’ extremely taboo conversation with a Samaritan woman, which took place in heat of the day near a well in which the outcast woman had come to draw water from.  Jesus addresses the customs of this woman’s world and flips them upside down and inside out.  When this woman was accustomed to worshiping in a specific place, at a specific time and with specific practices, Jesus gives her several things to reconsider for worship as a lifestyle, opposite of her previous ritualistic mindset.  In Jesus’ discourse he makes it known in no uncertain terms that a time has come in which worship will no longer consist of meaningless monotony, rather, it will now be an intentional way of living life; that it is no longer about where one worships, but that when one is in a love relationship with the Father, he/she will choose to make their lives a temple (place of worship) and that we will no longer worship what we thought we knew.  Instead, we will worship a living God and we will do so in spirit and it truth.

 

Worship in Spirit

My understanding of worship in spirit is to allow the Holy Spirit to guide, lead and direct your everything; thoughts, words, deeds – your life.  After Jesus’ ascension into heaven, He left for us the Holy Spirit which envelopes each believer as they make a decision to surrender their lives to God and allow Him to be Lord.  God’s spirit is active and alive, convicting us, prompting us, and leading us.  As such, when we worship God in spirit, we are proactively seeking the spirit within us to guide us in loving, celebrating and surrendering to our God.  This idea of worship is something that is significantly short-changed if not near impossible without the presence of the Holy Spirit working both in and through us to God our Father.

What’s more is that the Spirit of God is not a physical body or being but is everywhere present. This is exciting as it does not confine our worship to a specific place and time, but makes it possible to worship in spirit in all things.

Worship in Truth

Truth.  For some this word is relative, meaning you can make it whatever you want it to be to fit your individual needs and desires.  The fact of the matter is that truth is in no way relative, but is the crux of actuality.  This is not different in worship.  I believe there are several adjectives surrounding truth that help to better describe truth – words like: integrity, candor, reality, sincerity, honesty, and authenticity. While these words are not the definition of truth per the world’s standards, they are no less important or vital.

To worship in truth is to give 100% of one’s self with authenticity and sincerity; to offer a life as you are, where you are with everything that makes up who you are.  I don’t believe that God is looking for fakes, frauds or phonies.  Instead, I think that God examines a man’s heart and appreciates honesty in worship as is exhibited in David’s account in Psalm 139:

¹ O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.
⁵ You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence…

²³ Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.

²⁴ See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

I don’t think God is looking for pretenders; rather, He’s looking for candor from His children.  It seems to me that God wants us to worship Him with intentionality and vulnerability, and sometimes that may mean that we are not feeling it as much as we would like, still we choose to worship anyway.  This also means that when we are in a state of happiness we give God worship through our praise and adoration, giving Him the credit for the things we have in our lives.

Worship is…

What I’ve come to come to understand and believe about worship is this: worship is as much about whom one is as it is about what one does.  Worship is both an inward and outward expression of our love relationship with God – an opportunity for us to exercise our existence in that we each are created for worship.  Not just any worship, but worship in spirit and in truth.

Church On Purpose

Over the years I have come to realize that although the things I do most often have a purpose behind them, there are many things that have become routine; things that I do because that’s what you do.  For instance, when was the last time you brushed your teeth and really considered each of the reasons for dental hygiene; flossing, brushing and rinsing with mouth wash?  Sure there is the unspoken common courtesy on fresh breath and that in and of itself is a very valid reason for brushing one’s teeth, but I would venture to guess that most of us have come to a place in which brushing our teeth is more habitual than anything else.  Usually the habit of brushing is met with a stark reminder of the reasons why we practice good hygiene just before or immediately after a visit to the dentist.

While recently reading a book for one of my Seminary classes I was faced with this same type of question, but for the church.

Has the “art” of going to or doing church become habitual for us?

Sure there are the underlying benefits just as there are for good dental hygiene, after all church is good for the soul (pun intended).  What’s more is it’s a chance to fill up, right?

When we go to church we will likely experience some level of social interaction, some form of non-participative auditory message reception, a few songs that we dub as worship, a chance to fulfill our tithe obligations, an opportunity to read the bulletin, program, worship guide or whatever derivative of the same the church has come up with for the order of service and announcements, the exchange of pleasantries and maybe more.

As a child growing up and now as an adult with a family I often find that I go through the same routine of getting ready for church, going to church, doing church, and eating after church before heading home to download from my time at church.  Our family has a habit of getting up, eating breakfast, grabbing clothes, getting ready and heading out just in time to not be too early, but maybe avoid being late as well.  I cannot think of the last time we spent time talking about why we go to church, have a church, do church and the like.

We just do.

Now maybe you’re reading this and thinking to yourself that I am an anomaly and you would be right, but likely not for the reasons you would be reading or writing about.  You could also be reading this and asking yourself how a pastor of a church could feel this way and that is a great question.  After all, haven’t I been charged with the task of serving and leading the church?  If so, am I part of the monotony?  Am I to blame for the habitual church where we switch it to auto-pilot and go about doing church, understanding that there is value and merit to church without really ever giving intentional thought or effort to what church is really about?  If you were to ask me here and now I would have to say, “Guilty as charged”.

Ernest Hemingway once said,”Never mistake motion for action.”  This is profound in so many ways.  Just because we go to church and do the church thing, we ought not mistake our motion for action.  After all if we are merely hearers of the Word and not doers, aren’t we then just going through the motions, never meeting our faith with action?

Isn’t it time that we are a part of a Church On Purpose?  A Church that does church on purpose, with a purpose and for a purpose?

Though I don’t pretend to have it all figured out, I will be exploring this idea further over the next few days, weeks and months.

Thanks for taking the time to give me your feedback as we journey through this thing called life and ministry together.

I Love My Ducks!

No.2 University of Oregon Ducks square off against the unranked Oregon State University Beavers.

I’m super-stoked for the Civil War game today.  It should be a good one and by good one I mean a good warm-up for Oregon on their way to the BCS Championship Bowl.

 

TGIF

TGIF: Reflections from the week that was…

Monday is usually reserved for our team staff meetings at OCEC – a time for us as pastors and leaders to get together, hangout, talk about life and ministry, pray and generally forecast for the things to come.  While in the past this time has been a dreaded “information download session”, our team and meeting dynamics have shifted which has created an excitement, if ever there could be such a thing, about staff meetings.  This week we didn’t have a staff meeting because we have chosen to forego our meeting time(s) on the 5th Monday of the month.

Monday was spent in prayer and fasting, seeking God and His divine leading in life and ministry.  I spent a majority of my day in my office, listening and playing music, reading, praying, thinking, and sitting in one of the oversized microfiber chairs in my office.  I realize that it has been far too long since I last “chilled” for a day, relatively secluding myself from the distractions of the world that be.

Monday night my family went to Kaiser Hospital in Clackamas, Oregon to spend time with Stacy’s father who was recently diagnosed with congestive heart failure.  Though Stacy’s father and I have not always seen eye to eye, I can say that I have grown to really appreciate him as a person, his perspectives on this world, his faith and his sense of humor…the guys’ freakin’ hilarious.  Though in bed with oxygen and IV’s, he invited the kids into his “first class” hospital bed for a tour of the buttons.  A cheap replica of a Disneyland ride, the kids had a blast.  (Please pray for Stacy’s father, Ted, as he continues to heal from this illness)

Tuesday was a day of meetings.  Morning meetings.  Afternoon meetings.  Evening meetings.  The best part of my Tuesday took place at St. John the Apostle Catholic Church in Oregon City.  I was invited by a friend to play basketball with a group of fellas that get together every Tuesday at 8:30 pm for a time of remembering and reenacting the “glory days”.  Let me go on record as saying…I light it up! I have NEVER played basketball so well in my life.  I was no less than 7 for 10 behind the three-point line in addition to hitting almost everything from the perimeter.  Not bad for a has-been or more accurately, a never-was in his early 30′s.  The dilemma?  Not sure if I will go back next week.  The chances of me having another night like that are nil and the fellas will figure out that I’m really a hack.  What to do?

Wednesday was spent on the phone.  I think I have spent more time in phone meetings these last couple of weeks than at any other point in my life.  For the first time since the installation of cell phones in my life I went over on minutes to the tune of .45 a minute.  Crap!  I’m gonna scramble to see if I can change my plan, add minutes and save what pennies I have in my savings account.

Thursday was again spent mostly on the phone.  I had a lot of conversations with some great people.

Thursday afternoon I got to have lunch with my fellow sojourner Brian See.  Nothing quite like a good Quizno’s sandwich with one of my best friends to kick my day into high gear.  Brian and I spent time catching up, looking at ministry, talking about health products (mostly cleansers), and thinking through this crazy thing we call life.  Note to self: Gotta do more of that!

Thursday night was The Inn, our 18-30(ish) young adult gathering for our church.  God knows how much I love the people of 97045 and of our church.  I am so blessed to be the pastor of our group; a chance to live life and do ministry with some of the most amazing people ever.  It’s hard to believe I get to do this as a vocation.  The worship last night was awesome.  The message was engaging and challenging.  Communion rocked.  People responded, stepped up and are ready to make a difference in their communities and world.

Today is Friday.  I’m hanging out at home, taking my girls to the ear specialist for a follow-up appointment and tackling my “honey-do” list for the week or month…or year?!

Until all hear,

Andrew Andrew

Cost of Leadership

This morning I woke up and checked my e-mail, specifically an e-mail account that I check maybe once a week due in large part to the amount of spam that comes to the account…arrgghh!  That said, I opened it up and found an encouraging, yet difficult reminder as a “Christian Leader”, a reminder fitting for all of us whom have entered into a relationship with the Living God and accepted His call on our lives.  The reminder?  A blog from an area-pastor and church leader, Perry Noble, of NewSpring Church in Anderson, SC penetrates to the heart of some prices that a Christian Leader must be willing to pay this side of heaven.

Here’s the catch…

I want to say that the blog was likely written with Pastors and other leaders in the church in mind, and as such I would agree with the premis of the blog, but I wouldn’t stop it there.  Though Pastors and Elders are held to a different standard of measure, it should go without saying that Christians will face trials and tribulations as a follower of Jesus Christ and, we too, should be mindful and aware of what we’re up against.

That said, I invite you to check out Perry’s blog entitled: The Five Prices A Leader Must Be Willing To Pay, a blog that is challenging me and my comfort level as a leader and follower of Jesus.

Question?  What price(s) are you willing to pay as a Christian and as a leader?

That’s what I’m wrestling with and I invite you to grapple with it too.

Who or rather, what are we wrestling and fighting against that makes leadership and the Christian life so costly?

Another great reminder: Ephesians 6:12 !

Our battle is not against the clock.  It’s not against our employer.  It’s not against the government or the politics of this world.  Our battle is NOT against other believers, church leaders, churches and or those who claim Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior.

It’s all about a right perspective.

I pray that I may keep a proper perspective in this life and put my hope and faith in the One who has called me.  This is the only way I can make it in life and in leadership.

Sunday Night Mind Dump

A long and exciting week:

+ Started the week off with seminary. I’m in a cohort with 29 other Master of Ministry hopefuls. Four times a year we get together and effectively cram a semester of school into 4 long days packed full of lectures, reading, lectures, colloquia discussions, lectures, presentations, power points, and more lectures.  I was in school from a week-ago, Sunday, to Wednesday night.  We stay on-sight as to encourage more of an intentional focus on school and the others in our cohort.  Good times!!!

+ Thursday was The Inn, our young adults service geared for ages 18 to 30′s.  My buddy Garrett Beatty shared the third message of a four-part series entitled, “Road Signs”. Garrett did a great job addressing the topic of Pedestrian Crossing and the importance of relationships and one-another’s.

+ Friday was full of necessary errands in preparation for our weekend retreat – a trip to Mt. Hood RV Village.  Several young adults from our group went up to the mountain with the most unbelievable rain imaginable.  When we got there on Friday afternoon there was no more than a light drizzle, but within minutes of starting to set up the first tent there was torrential down pour.  Four tents later and every one of us soaked to the bone, the rest of the crew arrived to what would be a wickedly wet weekend.  The one great part of a wet weekend retreat is the amount of time our group spent under shelter in confined spaces.  It made for great conversations and connections.

+ Getting home after the retreat was sweet!  I missed my kiddos a ton and there is nothing quite like my kids running up to me and Stacy and yelling for us with anticipation and excitement at the top of their lungs.  Maybe Stacy and I should get away, just the two of us, more often?  There is benefit for both, huh?!  An opportunity for Stacy and I to grow in our relationship as well as the kids to wait with unparalleled anticipation for their dearest parents to return home.

+ Tomorrow starts a new week and I’m looking forward to some semblance of normalcy.  Can’t believe I just said that, but…

+ Thinking about starting to blog again on a semi-regular basis.  It seems to be good for my soul.

If you read this…Thanks!

~Andrew